


I feel like a woman

by Multifandom_damnation



Category: Titans (TV 2018)
Genre: Background Relationships, Developing Friendships, Dialogue Light, Female Friendship, Gen, Girl Power, Idols, Introspection, POV Rachel, Team Bonding, Team Dynamics, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-11-28 00:44:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20957639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multifandom_damnation/pseuds/Multifandom_damnation
Summary: Rachel had been around a lot of powerful woman in the last few months, from Kory to Donna to Dawn, and somehow she had managed to find a way to look up to every single one of them, for good reason.





	I feel like a woman

Rachel had been around a lot of powerful woman in the last few months, from Kory to Donna to Dawn, and somehow she had managed to find a way to look up to every single one of them.

While the murder of her secretly adopted mother Melissa and her quest to find people who could help her and escape the grasp by her father was less than ideal and the betrayal of her birth mother was just like a slap in the face, Rachel had ironically been able to look on the bright side.  
  
Sure, it hadn't been easy. Every day she had either been kidnapped, attacked, or someone tried to kill her. Her friends had been thrown off of buildings and traumatized and tortured all because they had tried to protect her.  
  
Having 'friends' was a new concept for her. She had more friends now than she'd ever had in her entire life. Nobody liked her at school, the people in her neighbourhood had wanted to get rid of her for ages, and nobody she had ever met could stand her for longer than a few minutes. Something about her aura, Melissa used to say. The others just couldn't understand it.  
  
But now, for some reason, while she was running for her life across the country, she had made more friends than she could handle after a lifetime of having none. She had Dick and Garfield and Kory and Donna and Hank and Dawn and Jason- how had she done it? How had she convinced, _tricked_, all these people into liking her? She wished she knew.  
  
Garfield was the best friend she always wanted. He was always there when she needed him and there when she didn't, and she honestly didn't think that she'd have been able to get through all the scary stuff that had happened without him. He was quite literally the light in her darkness, illuminating a path to come back to the light.  
  
Dick was something she never knew she needed but deep down knew that she desperately wanted it. He cared about her even though at first he wasn't willing to admit it, but over time he had become something more than a friend. She'd never had a father, but she suspected that it must have felt like this. She wasn't worried about him leaving any more- every time he had gone away and left them for a while, he had come straight back home.

It was no secret that Hank didn’t really get along with people and he hadn’t been all that happy to see her when Dick had dumped her on their doorstep, but he had never pushed her away and he fought tooth and nail to protect her. That was all Rachel could ask for, anyway. Jason may have been a brat from the very start and Rachel honestly was glad when he and Dick had left for some sort of secret mission because she wasn’t sure what to make of him, but he didn’t look at her like she was a freak and he treated her with more kindness than most, so that was worth something.

But despite all this, despite these men meaning more to her than anything ever had in her life, it wasn’t them who had impacted Rachel’s life so entirely that she could barely function without it.

She was in awe of the women in her life, there was no denying it. From the moment Kory saved her from the Nuclear Family to when Donna had stormed into her mother’s cabin in the woods, Rachel had been head over heels for every one of them. 

They were just so… wonderful, and strong, and everything Rachel wasn’t and wished she could be. They were artisans of their craft, masters of their trade, even if their trade was killing people and fighting crime. But that didn’t matter, because Rachel killed people too, and trouble seemed to follow her wherever she went. She was fine with a little bit of bloodshed.

While they were all strong and amazing and brilliant, they were all different in many ways and special in others, and yet somehow Rachel had found some way to fall in love and idolize every single one of them.

Kory was bright in more ways than just her flaming hair and her glowing eyes, like a raging bonfire in the dead of night. She was kind and genuine. When Rachel felt like the whole world was falling in around her, Kory was always there to hold up the sky like Atlas and take on any burden she needed to as long as it ensured that Rachel would be safe. She wore whatever she wanted and didn’t care what other people thought of her because she knew how hot she was and knew people were staring and knew that there wasn’t a damn thing they could do to stop her. Rachel _wished_ she could pull off metallic purple.

There was a moment in her life where Rachel would dream of an all-powerful protector who would fall from the sky and save her in her time of need and burn down the world to keep her happy, and never in her wildest dreams did she ever think the protector would look so beautiful or so stunning or that it would be as amazing as Kory.

She broke the world because she could. She screamed in the face of conformity because nobody could tell her not to. She ruined the very nature of the earth because she didn’t like it. She was everything Rachel wished she could be and more.

And strong- Kory was so strong in so many ways, in fight and strength and mind, and yet she was sensitive when she most needed to be. When she was kissing Dick or teasing Garfield or watching over Rachel, she was as soft as marshmallow fluff and just as sweet. But when she was alone, when she needed to be brave, that wall went up, and the diamond-like skin protected her from pain and she broke the world for her family.

Even though she didn’t know who she was and her past was a mystery, she still barreled headfirst towards danger for the ones she loved and put her own history behind her for another day. She was reluctant to let Rachel heal her mind because she didn’t want anything she learned to dissuade her from looking after the team, but even when she _did_ remember, and after she had tried to kill Rachel, she put the mission she had come to this world for behind her in order to save Rachel from her father, and Rachel knew that she was scared shitless, but she didn’t show it.

Rachel wanted to be that brave. She wanted to burn down the world without a care in the world, both literally and figuratively. She wanted all the people who ever looked down at her to bow down at her feet and in bask in her glory. She wanted to shine brightly and be kind to everyone who ever lived but have them know that if they tried to fuck with her she would break them so completely.

Dawn… she was something special. She was elegant and graceful and soft, yet Rachel had no doubt that she could break a man without expending any effort. She wasn’t as strong as Hank- in fact, she was tiny in comparison, petite and delicate, yet Rachel had seen her leap over rooftops and break peoples noses as if she were stronger than Hank. Maybe she _was_ stronger than Hank, deep down under that exterior layer of sugar-sweet kindness. Dawn had been kind to her the moment she had laid eyes on her, even though she was encroaching unannounced on their space with Dick in tow, who obviously had bad blood between them, but she had embraced Rachel with open arms and set up the spare room for her and let her help cook dinner and was just so kind that Rachel didn’t know she had missed it until she realized she never had it.

The way she looked at Hank made Rachel feel like the world was ending in all the best ways. Not apocalypse-by-a-demon kind of ending, but raining-flames-and-bubbling-oceans kind of end. It would be painful and horrific, but it would be beautiful. She had so much passion in everything she did- some of it was given wholly to Hank, but the rest was devoted completely to the rush of the fight and the thrill of battle, and Rachel hoped that one day she would be as passionate and look that good doing it. She just hoped that she would find something to be that passionate about.

But Dawn was beautiful in a different way than Kory. While Kory was a raging bonfire in the dead of night, Dawn was the rising moon over the ocean. Ethereal and majestic and splendid. Whenever Rachel looked at her, she could hardly tear her eyes away, and the worst thing was that _Dawn had no idea_. That was just… crazy to Rachel. She wasn’t like Kory, who wore clothes to amplify her best features and flatter herself at every angle, but Dawn wore clothes that were too big for her and yoga pants and Hank’s shirts and jumpers and sometimes braided her platinum white hair and wore minimal makeup and her favourite outfit was her white and blue Dove suit. It was almost like she tried to downplay her naturally radiant beauty. But thankfully, while Dawn was busy forgetting how beautiful she was, there was always Dick and Hank to look at her the way she deserved to be stared at. Rachel knew that she and Dick had used to date, and while he did look at her with a little bit of love, it was more admiration and awe than anything else. Hank, on the other hand, looked at Dawn like she was the rising sun and his setting moon like he had never seen anything else in the world as beautiful as she was. And Rachel didn’t care how they looked at her, as long as she wasn’t the only one who recognized how wonderful Dawn was.

Rachel wanted to be that effortlessly kind- so easily considerate and heartfelt. Of course, she tried to be, but Dawn made being nice look like an art form. Everything was just so effortless to her, from loving to being kind to fighting with her eyes closed. Rachel had always envied people who were good at everything without even trying. Dawn was apparently an exception. Instead of being jealous about her talents and skills, Rachel wanted to be her- wanted men to look at her like they looked at Dawn, wanted to be as fluid and elegant as Dawn’s dancers body, wanted to be pretty without trying, wanted to fight like she had been kicking ass for most of her life. Everything about her was just so effortless, and instead of being envious of her, Rachel aspired to be just like Dawn.

Donna was just brilliant in a way that Rachel had never seen before. While Kory was a raging bonfire in the dead of night and Dawn was the rising moon over the ocean, Donna was the way the sun glistened over sand on a hot afternoon. Blinding and superb, a faint beauty you didn’t know existed until it had pulled you in with its wiles. She was brazen and determined and always had a plan to match her every action, and never once did she question her motives because she knew they would always be in the right place. 

She had no fear in her heart or dread in her soul, and while Rachel was sure that it was the Amazonian side of her coming out, she wished deep down that she could be as fearless. It wasn’t the same kind of fearlessness that Kory had- no, Kory looked at the world and fought it no matter how scared she was, while Donna looked fear in the face because she knew that it should be afraid of her. Donna was confident and she knew exactly what she was doing at all times. Sometimes Rachel would look at her and see the kid that Dick had loved, and other times she saw a warrior who never let her guard down and never broke formation.

But she was strong. So strong. Kory was brave and Dawn was kind but Donna was strong in will and in might. She could shift mountains without breaking a sweat, or pull apart entire sky-scrapers in less time than it took Gar to devour a whole pizza. She could break the earth in half with nothing but an accidental sneeze. When Rachel watched her, watched her move with elegant grace but an undertone of danger, she knew without a doubt that Donna could crush her with her bare hands.

Of course, Rachel knew that her unbelievable might wasn’t natural- she was an Amazon, and they were known for being only second to the gods. Even Superman feared Wonder Woman. Despite this, Rachel still wised that she would shake the core of the earth just by dancing, or shattering the windows from the highest buildings just by clapping. Though she had never seen Donna do any of these amazing feats, she had no doubt in her mind that she could do them if she’d wanted.

She was unafraid to go up against any man, any villain, any challenge. She never backed away from a fight even though she didn’t know if she could win. She knew that one day she would die, but she did not fear that day, and she knew that if that day came sooner than she planned, then she would face death with a smile. Rachel aspired to be as strong as Donna and hoped that one day she would look in the mirror and see a cocky smile and sharp eyes and confidence instead of a timid young woman with haunted eyes and underlying darkness.

Rachel brought it up with her one day, while she was pottering about in the kitchen, and Rachel was sitting on the bench kicking her feet. “What are you staring at me for?” Donna asked with narrowed eyes, but the smile on her lips told Rachel that she was joking.

“Oh,” Rachel blinked and shook her head a little. “Sorry. I spaced out for a little bit.”

Nodding, Donna moved to the sink and started to rinse the dirty dishes that had begun to pile up. “What were you thinking about? Don’t lie and tell me nothing. I grew up with _Dick_\- I’ve dealt with harder nuts to crack than you.”

Slipping off the counter, Rachel moved towards where Donna was elbow-deep in sudsy water. “Is there anything I can do to help you?”

Abruptly, Donna reached up and turned up the tap in one fluid movement and then turned back around to face Rachel. “I’ll do it later, actually. Why don’t you sit back down and we’ll talk about what’s on your mind, huh?” she flicked her wrists and Rachel was covering her face and dodging flying suds.

Rachel was honestly a little embarrassed for bringing it up at all. “It’s just... you ladies. I don’t know. I wish I could be like you one day, that’s all.”

Frowning, Donna leant against the kitchen sink and crossed her hands. “Why the hell would you say that?”

“You’re all just... so amazing,” Rachel found herself at a loss for words. “You and Kory and Dawn.”

Donna snorted. “God, I hope you never end up like us.”

Confused, Rachel’s brow furrowed, and she looked at Donna like the woman had just crushed all her hopes and dreams. “What- why not?”

Reaching over, Donna affectionately used her thumb to press the furrowed flesh between Rachel’s eyes and the younger girl slapped her hand away. “Because I’d rather that you just be _Rachel_. We don’t need any more Dawn’s or Donna’s or Kory’s in the world. We need more Rachel’s.”

If it was possible, Rachel looked even more confused. “Why?”

“Hank and Dawn are a package deal, and regardless, they’re like Dick and Batman anyway,” Donna explained, counting on her fingers. “I am one of the thousands of Amazonians, one of them being Wonder Woman, and Kory is an alien from another world where there are probably heaps of people like her. We’re only unique to a few select people, but when you think about the grand scheme of things, we’re really just... boring. But I can name only one person who can do what you do, and that’s _you_.”

Rachel felt like she was grasping at straws, dangling by her fingertips on the edge of something intangible but too far away for her to properly make out. “I don’t understand... me? I’m not special. People die whenever they get around me, my father is a literal demon, and there’s a cult that’s been trying to find me all my life. How does that make me anywhere near what you guys are?”

Smiling sadly, Donna reached out and gently cradled Rachel’s face in her hand. “Forget all that,” she said. “You’re beautiful, Rachel, and you’re kind. You’re braver than anyone I have ever met, especially after everything you’ve gone through, and you’ve still managed to come out stronger for it. You’re unbelievable. I wish I could be half the woman you are.”

“Really?” Rachel felt like she might cry. “But Kory’s brave, and Dawn is kind and you’re just so strong and I-”

“And you’re all of that and more,” Dawn interrupted kindly, gently running her hand down Rachel’s cheek. “And don’t you ever let anyone tell you otherwise. You are a _woman_, and you better believe that you fight like one.”

Rachel was close to tears, “Thanks Donna,”

“Don’t sweat,” Donna grinned, pulling away from Rachel’s face and holding a fist out in the air instead. “Girl power?”

For a moment, Rachel looked at it blankly, a little bit confused before she closed her own hand into the fist and smacked it against Donna’s. “Girl power.”

“Great,” Donna moved to wrap her arm around Rachel’s shoulders and steer her away from the kitchen. “Now, let’s go see what trouble the boys are getting into without us.”


End file.
